My personal Rosetta moment aka the team and the purpose

There is a lot of media attention accompanied with the Rosetta mission (And to make it clear in the beginning: IMHO it could be a lot more!). But one certain moment really struck me. And when I write ‘struck me’ I mean actually: I had the happiest of tears for quite a while ago.

But before I start my sermon I would like to show the extract of the press conference the day after the “triple landing” (Sorry if I disregard any copyrights, but I think it is “in the spirit of the inventor”).

Andrea Accomazzo (ESA Spacecraft Operations Manager):

While these NaCL enriched fluids exit my lachrymals (actually in significant amounts – yikes!) I want to write about some essential – existential – insights which are more or less hidden in this sequence.

Of course, and that has to be mentioned in the first place: How much dedication and awareness one must have to step back in a moment like this in order to make sure that the mission as a WHOLE will run properly? Humans, I can not tell you how much this inspires me in my shy hope, that there could be more then greediness and selfishness on this planet.

The PURPOSE of the mission was not to acquire “space for the nation”, “resources” or “spiritual domination”. The purpose is to answer fundamental questions (or at least acquire some puzzle pieces of the wonder of the third (or forth) filter step of mankinds development)). How do we got water on this planet? From a anthropocentric point of view an obvious ingredient in the soup of life. 😉

Therefore a multinational team cooperated for more than 20 years to do some science about this. And then the reallycool thing happens: An important team member says: Ok, I do the shift AFTER the “big event”. The purpose is more important then my personal ego. Baaaam-tschakka-zulu-respect! And thank you, Stephane.

This proves also to me that humans are able to use its degree of abstraction in order to serve the higher, mutual goal. No vanity, no ego-shit.

Another point is the behavior of Andrea Accomazzo – it is about about how he transforms his responsibility as a leader to a reminder about what it means to be a team. Give props to the single one, while never forget that this mission is a mutual achievement – with a very long history, starting way before Andrea himself joined the crew. Of course I am also glad to see some unfiltered emotions – something human in this polished “selfie media reality“.

The third and last point:
Science, science, science = curiosity, curiosity, curiosity.

Let’s accelerate. The good stuff.

Or to say it with Stafford Beer: Let’s manage the variety for more exploration.